Microsoft tosses out nice surprises for Xbox fans at Gamescom

Microsoft unveiled some pleasant surprises for fans at its Gamescom press event today in Cologne, Germany.

Among the nice news bits was a gameplay demo for Quantum Break, the new video game and television show coming from Alan Wake maker Remedy Entertainment. Sam Lake, the writing chief at Remedy showed off how the game, where time has fallen out of sync, is a high-end shooter. You can manipulate time, moving forward or back, to deal extra damage to heavily armed foes. At first, it seemed that Quantum Break seemed movie-like, with a strong narrative. But some of this “time amplified” action reminds me of the slow-motion combat in Remedy’s Alan Wake and Max Payne games.

Quantum Break debuts as an exclusive on the Xbox One in 2015. It survived a series of budget cuts that eliminated most of the other TV programming in the works at Xbox Entertainment Studios, the Hollywood studio that Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella decided to ax.

Another interesting new game is ScreamRide, a title coming in 2015 from Frontier Developments for Microsoft Studios. The Xbox One and Xbox 360 exclusive fuses creation, destruction, and action in a kind of sandbox creativity game. You can use your to build extreme rides and environments. It’s sort of like Rollercoaster Tycoon, with next-generation graphics. Once you engineer your insane rides, you can scream while riding them.

Above: Scream Ride: A twisted take on roller coasters.

Image Credit: Microsoft

Microsoft also had a ton of new ID@Xbox games, like the cute 8-bit graphics game The Escapists.

And it showed off Halo 5 Guardians multiplayer (coming in 2015) and more detailed imagery from the fall title Halo: The Master Chief Collection. The company also said that Square Enix’s Rise of the Tomb Raider game will be an exclusive on Xbox One (and possibly Xbox 360). It debuts in 2015, and it’s about “what it means to become a hero.” It will take place in the “most beautifully hostile places on Earth.”

Microsoft also has exclusive access in January to the open beta of Take-Two Interactive’s Evolve, which debuts early next year on multiple platforms on Feb. 10. It’s a massively fun 4-on-1 cooperative multiplayer game.

The Xbox One is launching in 29 new countries this fall, including China. Microsoft also has new bundles like an Xbox One Call of Duty package, and it also has bundles for Sunset Overdrive and FIFA 15.

“I’ve said it before, it’s an incredible time to be a gamer, and an incredible time to be an Xbox One gamer,” said Phil Spencer, head of the Xbox business at Microsoft, at the company’s press event in Cologne, Germany, where the giant Gamescom expo is held.